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Tag: Order

  • Judge halts Trump administration cuts to disaster aid for ‘sanctuary’ states

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    A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily halted a Trump administration plan to reduce disaster relief and anti-terrorism funding for states with so-called sanctuary policies for undocumented immigrants.

    U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy granted the temporary restraining order curtailing the cuts at the request of California, 10 other states and the District of Columbia, which argued in a lawsuit Monday that the policy appeared to have illegally cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.

    The states said they were first notified of the cuts over the weekend. McElroy made her decision during an emergency hearing on the states’ motion in Rhode Island District Court on Tuesday afternoon.

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta cheered the decision as the state’s latest win in pushing back against what he described as a series of unlawful, funding-related power grabs by the Trump administration.

    “Over and over, the courts have stopped the Trump Administration’s illegal efforts to tie unrelated grant funding to state policies,” Bonta said. “It’s a little thing called state sovereignty, but given the President’s propensity to violate the Constitution, it’s unsurprising that he’s unfamiliar with it.”

    Neither the White House nor the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the funding and notified the states of the cuts, immediately responded to a request for comment Tuesday.

    Sanctuary policies are not uniform and the term is imprecise, but it generally refers to policies that bar states and localities — and their local law enforcement agencies — from participating in federal immigration raids or other enforcement initiatives.

    The Trump administration and other Republicans have cast such policies as undermining law and order. Democrats and progressives including in California say instead that states and cities have finite public safety resources and that engaging in immigration enforcement serves only to undermine the trust they and their law enforcement agencies need to maintain with the public in order to prevent and solve crime, including in large immigrant communities.

    In their lawsuit Monday, the states said the funding being reduced was part of billions in federal dollars annually distributed to the states to “prepare for, protect against, respond to, and recover from catastrophic disasters,” and which administrations of both political parties distributed “evenhandedly” for decades before Trump.

    Authorized by Congress after events such as Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina, the funding covers the salaries of first responders, testing of state computer networks for cyberattack vulnerabilities, mutual aid compacts between regional partners and emergency responses after disasters, the states said.

    Bonta’s office said California was informed over the weekend by Homeland Security officials that it would be receiving $110 million instead of $165 million, a reduction of its budget by about a third. The states’ lawsuit said other blue states saw even more dramatic cuts, with Illinois seeing a 69% reduction and New York receiving a 79% reduction, while red states saw substantial funding increases.

    Bonta on Tuesday said the administration’s reshuffling of funds based on state compliance with the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement priorities was illegal and needed to be halted — and restored to previous levels based on risk assessment — in order to keep everyone in the country safe.

    “California uses the grant funding at stake in our lawsuit to protect the safety of our communities from acts of terrorism and other disasters — meaning the stakes are quite literally life and death,” he said. “This is not something to play politics with. I’m grateful to the court for seeing the urgency of this dangerous diversion of homeland security funding.”

    Homeland Security officials have previously argued that the agency should be able to withhold funding from states that it believes are not upholding or are actively undermining its core mission of defending the nation from threats, including the threat it sees from illegal immigration.

    Other judges have also ruled against the administration conditioning disaster and public safety funding on states and localities complying with federal immigration policies.

    Joining California in Monday’s lawsuit were Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.

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    Kevin Rector

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  • Trump asks Supreme Court to uphold restrictions he wants to impose on birthright citizenship

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    President Donald Trump’s administration is asking the Supreme Court to uphold his birthright citizenship order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.Previous reporting: A legal win for birthright citizenship after Supreme Court setbackThe appeal, shared with The Associated Press on Saturday, sets in motion a process at the high court that could lead to a definitive ruling from the justices by early summer on whether the citizenship restrictions are constitutional.Lower-court judges have so far blocked them from taking effect anywhere. The Republican administration is not asking the court to let the restrictions take effect before it rules.The Justice Department’s petition has been shared with lawyers for parties challenging the order, but is not yet docketed at the Supreme Court.Any decision on whether to take up the case is probably months away, and arguments probably would not take place until the late winter or early spring.“The lower court’s decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the president and his administration in a manner that undermines our border security,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote. “Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”Cody Wofsy, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represents children who would be affected by Trump’s restrictions, said the administration’s plan is plainly unconstitutional.“This executive order is illegal, full stop, and no amount of maneuvering from the administration is going to change that. We will continue to ensure that no baby’s citizenship is ever stripped away by this cruel and senseless order,” Wofsy said in an email.Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term in the White House that would upend more than 125 years of understanding that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as unconstitutional, or likely so, even after a Supreme Court ruling in late June that limited judges’ use of nationwide injunctions.While the Supreme Court curbed the use of nationwide injunctions, it did not rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The justices did not decide at that time whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional.But every lower court that has looked at the issue has concluded that Trump’s order violates or likely violates the 14th Amendment, which was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship.The administration is appealing two cases.The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco ruled in July that a group of states that sued over the order needed a nationwide injunction to prevent the problems that would be caused by birthright citizenship being in effect in some states and not others.Also in July, a federal judge in New Hampshire blocked the citizenship order in a class-action lawsuit including all children who would be affected.Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers who are in the country illegally, under long-standing rules. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment.The administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.

    WASHINGTON —

    President Donald Trump’s administration is asking the Supreme Court to uphold his birthright citizenship order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.

    Previous reporting: A legal win for birthright citizenship after Supreme Court setback

    The appeal, shared with The Associated Press on Saturday, sets in motion a process at the high court that could lead to a definitive ruling from the justices by early summer on whether the citizenship restrictions are constitutional.

    Lower-court judges have so far blocked them from taking effect anywhere. The Republican administration is not asking the court to let the restrictions take effect before it rules.

    The Justice Department’s petition has been shared with lawyers for parties challenging the order, but is not yet docketed at the Supreme Court.

    Any decision on whether to take up the case is probably months away, and arguments probably would not take place until the late winter or early spring.

    “The lower court’s decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the president and his administration in a manner that undermines our border security,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote. “Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”

    Cody Wofsy, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who represents children who would be affected by Trump’s restrictions, said the administration’s plan is plainly unconstitutional.

    “This executive order is illegal, full stop, and no amount of maneuvering from the administration is going to change that. We will continue to ensure that no baby’s citizenship is ever stripped away by this cruel and senseless order,” Wofsy said in an email.

    Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term in the White House that would upend more than 125 years of understanding that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

    In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as unconstitutional, or likely so, even after a Supreme Court ruling in late June that limited judges’ use of nationwide injunctions.

    While the Supreme Court curbed the use of nationwide injunctions, it did not rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The justices did not decide at that time whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional.

    But every lower court that has looked at the issue has concluded that Trump’s order violates or likely violates the 14th Amendment, which was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship.

    The administration is appealing two cases.

    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco ruled in July that a group of states that sued over the order needed a nationwide injunction to prevent the problems that would be caused by birthright citizenship being in effect in some states and not others.

    Also in July, a federal judge in New Hampshire blocked the citizenship order in a class-action lawsuit including all children who would be affected.

    Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers who are in the country illegally, under long-standing rules. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment.

    The administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.

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  • Justice Department sues California, other states that have declined to share voter rolls

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    The U.S. Justice Department sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber on Thursday for failing to hand over the state’s voter rolls, alleging she is unlawfully preventing federal authorities from ensuring state compliance with federal voting regulations and safeguarding federal elections against fraud.

    The Justice Department also sued Weber’s counterparts in Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, who have similarly declined its requests for their states’ voter rolls.

    “Clean voter rolls are the foundation of free and fair elections,” Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement on the litigation. “Every state has a responsibility to ensure that voter registration records are accurate, accessible, and secure — states that don’t fulfill that obligation will see this Department of Justice in court.”

    In its lawsuit against Weber, who is the state’s top elections official, the Justice Department argues that it is charged — including under the National Voter Registration Act — with ensuring that states have proper protocols for registering voters and maintaining accurate and up-to-date rolls, and therefore is due access to state voter rolls in order to ensure they are so maintained.

    “The United States has now been forced to bring the instant action to seek legal remedy for Defendants’ refusal to comply with lawful requests pursuant to federal law,” the lawsuit states.

    Weber, in a statement, called the lawsuit “a fishing expedition and pretext for partisan policy objectives,” a “blatant overreach” and “an unprecedented intrusion unsupported by law or any previous practice or policy of the U.S. Department of Justice.”

    “The U.S. Department of Justice is attempting to utilize the federal court system to erode the rights of the State of California and its citizens by trying to intimidate California officials into giving up the private and personal information of 23 million California voters,” Weber said.

    She said California law requires that state officials “protect our voters’ sensitive private information,” and that the Justice Department not only “failed to provide sufficient legal authority to justify their intrusive demands,” but ignored invitations from the state for federal officials to come to Sacramento and view the data in person — a process Weber said was “contemplated by federal statutes” and would “protect California citizens’ private and personal data from misuse.”

    The Justice Department has demanded a “current electronic copy of California’s computerized statewide voter registration list”; lists of “all duplicate registration records in Imperial, Los Angeles, Napa, Nevada, San Bernardino, Siskiyou, and Stanislaus counties”; a “list of all duplicate registrants who were removed from the statewide voter registration list” and the dates of their removals.

    It has also demanded a list of all registrations that have been canceled because voters in the state died; an explanation for a recent decline in the recorded number of “inactive” voters in the state; and a list of “all registrations, including date of birth, driver’s license number, and last four digits of Social Security Number, that were cancelled due to non-citizenship of the registrant.”

    The litigation is the latest move by the Trump administration to push its demands around voting policies onto individual states, which are broadly tasked under the constitution with managing their own elections.

    The lawsuit follows an executive order by Trump in March that purported to radically reshape voting rules nationwide, including by requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship and requiring states to disregard mail ballots that are not received by election day.

    The order built on years of unsubstantiated claims by Trump — and refuted by experts — that the U.S. voting system currently allows for rampant fraud and abuse, and that those failures compromised the results of elections, including his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.

    Various voting rights groups and 19 states, including California, have sued to block the order.

    Advocacy groups say the order, and especially it’s requirements for proving citizenship, would disenfranchise legal U.S. citizen voters who lack ready access to identifying documents such as passports and REAL IDs. They have said barring the acceptance of mail ballots received after election day would also create barriers for voters, especially in large state such as California that need time to process large volumes of ballots.

    California currently accepts ballots if they are postmarked by election day and received within a certain number of days after.

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has called Trump’s executive order an “illegal power grab” that California and other states will “fight like hell” to stop. His office referred questions about the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against Weber to Weber’s office.

    Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

    Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, defended the need for the lawsuit, saying in a statement that clean voter rolls “protect American citizens from voting fraud and abuse, and restore their confidence that their states’ elections are conducted properly, with integrity, and in compliance with the law.”

    Weber, who in April called Trump’s executive order “an illegal attempt to trample on the states and Congress’s constitutional authority over elections,” said Thursday that she would not be bowed by the lawsuit.

    “The sensitive data of California citizens should not be used as a political tool to undermine the public trust and integrity of elections,” she said. “I will always stand with Californians to protect states’ rights against federal overreach and our voters’ sensitive personal information. Californians deserve better. America deserves better.”

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    Kevin Rector

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  • What to know after Trump classifies antifa as a domestic terror organization

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    President Donald Trump on Monday signed an order designating a decentralized movement known as antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, though whether he can actually do that remained unclear. Trump blames antifa for political violence.The Republican president said on social media last week during a state visit to the United Kingdom that he would be making such a designation. He called antifa a “SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER” and said he will be “strongly recommending” that its funders be investigated.The White House released Trump’s executive order shortly after he departed for New York, where he was addressing the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.Here are a few things to know about Trump and antifa:What is antifa?Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.Can Trump designate it as a domestic terrorist organization?Antifa is a domestic entity and, as such, is not a candidate for inclusion on the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations. Dozens of groups, including extremist organizations like the Islamic State and al-Qaida, are included on that list. The designation matters in part because it enables the Justice Department to prosecute those who give material support to entities on that list even if that support does not result in violence.But there is no domestic equivalent to that list in part because of broad First Amendment protections enjoyed by organizations operating within the United States. And despite periodic calls, particularly after mass shootings by white supremacists, to establish a domestic terrorism law, no singular statute now exists.The executive order did not specify how Trump would go about designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.What does antifa do exactly?Literature from the antifa movement encourages followers to pursue lawful protest activity as well as more confrontational acts, according to a 2018 Congressional Research Service report.The literature suggests that followers monitor the activities of white supremacist groups, publicize online the personal information of perceived enemies, develop self-defense training regimens and compel outside organizations to cancel any speakers or events with “a fascist bent,” the report said.People associated with antifa have been present for significant demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in recent years, including mobilizing against a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. They were also present during clashes with far-right groups in Portland, Oregon.Why did Trump label antifa as domestic terrorists?He says it’s a very bad and “sick” group. The executive order says antifa “uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide” to accomplish its goal of overthrowing the U.S. government. The order calls on relevant government departments and agencies to use every authority to investigate, disrupt and dismantle any and all illegal operations, including terrorist actions conducted by antifa or anyone claiming to act on its behalf.Trump’s history with antifaIn Trump’s first term, he and members of his administration singled out antifa as being responsible for the violence at protests triggered by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes and held it there even after Floyd stopped moving and pleading for air.Then-Attorney General William Barr described “antifa-like tactics” by out-of-state agitators and said antifa was instigating violence and engaging in “domestic terrorism” and would be dealt with accordingly.At the time, Trump blamed antifa by name for the violence, along with violent mobs, arsonists and looters.He recently began singling out antifa again by name following the Sept. 10 assassination of conservative youth activist Charlie Kirk, who was a big supporter of the president.In an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office last week, Trump said he would pursue a domestic terrorism designation for antifa if such a move had the support of Pam Bondi, the current attorney general, and other Cabinet members.“It’s something I would do, yeah,” Trump said. ”I would do that 100%. Antifa is terrible.”He previously had called for antifa to be designated as a terror organization after skirmishes in Portland, Oregon, during his first term.

    WASHINGTON —

    President Donald Trump on Monday signed an order designating a decentralized movement known as antifa as a domestic terrorist organization, though whether he can actually do that remained unclear. Trump blames antifa for political violence.

    The Republican president said on social media last week during a state visit to the United Kingdom that he would be making such a designation. He called antifa a “SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER” and said he will be “strongly recommending” that its funders be investigated.

    The White House released Trump’s executive order shortly after he departed for New York, where he was addressing the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday.

    Here are a few things to know about Trump and antifa:

    What is antifa?

    Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left-leaning militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

    Can Trump designate it as a domestic terrorist organization?

    Antifa is a domestic entity and, as such, is not a candidate for inclusion on the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations. Dozens of groups, including extremist organizations like the Islamic State and al-Qaida, are included on that list. The designation matters in part because it enables the Justice Department to prosecute those who give material support to entities on that list even if that support does not result in violence.

    But there is no domestic equivalent to that list in part because of broad First Amendment protections enjoyed by organizations operating within the United States. And despite periodic calls, particularly after mass shootings by white supremacists, to establish a domestic terrorism law, no singular statute now exists.

    The executive order did not specify how Trump would go about designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organization.

    What does antifa do exactly?

    Literature from the antifa movement encourages followers to pursue lawful protest activity as well as more confrontational acts, according to a 2018 Congressional Research Service report.

    The literature suggests that followers monitor the activities of white supremacist groups, publicize online the personal information of perceived enemies, develop self-defense training regimens and compel outside organizations to cancel any speakers or events with “a fascist bent,” the report said.

    People associated with antifa have been present for significant demonstrations and counter-demonstrations in recent years, including mobilizing against a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017. They were also present during clashes with far-right groups in Portland, Oregon.

    Why did Trump label antifa as domestic terrorists?

    He says it’s a very bad and “sick” group. The executive order says antifa “uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide” to accomplish its goal of overthrowing the U.S. government. The order calls on relevant government departments and agencies to use every authority to investigate, disrupt and dismantle any and all illegal operations, including terrorist actions conducted by antifa or anyone claiming to act on its behalf.

    Trump’s history with antifa

    In Trump’s first term, he and members of his administration singled out antifa as being responsible for the violence at protests triggered by the killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes and held it there even after Floyd stopped moving and pleading for air.

    Then-Attorney General William Barr described “antifa-like tactics” by out-of-state agitators and said antifa was instigating violence and engaging in “domestic terrorism” and would be dealt with accordingly.

    At the time, Trump blamed antifa by name for the violence, along with violent mobs, arsonists and looters.

    He recently began singling out antifa again by name following the Sept. 10 assassination of conservative youth activist Charlie Kirk, who was a big supporter of the president.

    In an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office last week, Trump said he would pursue a domestic terrorism designation for antifa if such a move had the support of Pam Bondi, the current attorney general, and other Cabinet members.

    “It’s something I would do, yeah,” Trump said. ”I would do that 100%. Antifa is terrible.”

    He previously had called for antifa to be designated as a terror organization after skirmishes in Portland, Oregon, during his first term.

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  • Is Trump’s troop buildup in U.S. cities a declaration of war — or something else?

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    Over the weekend, President Trump shared a doctored AI image of himself as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore, the crazed cavalry commander in the 1979 Vietnam War film, “Apocalypse Now,” crouched in a black Stetson hat in front of a flaming Chicago skyline abuzz with black helicopters.

    “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

    Trump has long promised to deploy the National Guard to America’s major urban hubs. But his unprecedented push this summer to deploy military convoys into Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — and drumbeat of threats to send yet more into cities from Baltimore to San Francisco — has left many Americans divided on whether his administration is trying to protect people in Democratic-controlled cities or wage war on them.

    When Trump first sent troops into L.A. in June, he argued federal immigration agents needed protection from locals who tried to obstruct them from fulfilling their mission. In August, he deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., seizing on instances of violent crime to claim a public emergency.

    And now he has paired the issues of crime and immigration as he threatens Chicago, deploying militaristic imagery and rhetoric that break longstanding American norms.

    As Trump goads Democratic-led cities, dubbing them poorly run “hellholes,” Americans are grappling with a fundamental question of American democracy: Is Trump simply fulfilling his election mandate to ramp up deportations and combat crime, as he and his supporters argue, or ushering in a new era of American authoritarianism?

    Trump’s critics warn that he is exaggerating crime in American cities to score political points. In deploying troops to Los Angeles and D.C., they argue, Trump is setting up a military police state that targets political opponents, tramples on due process, installs loyalists over institutionalists, and erodes longstanding distinctions between the military and domestic law enforcement.

    “This is how authoritarians behave, this is not how the leader of a free democracy behaves.” said Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “He is taking a page from authoritarian rulers around the world who have used crime as an excuse to consolidate power and suppress rights.”

    Conservatives tend to brush aside such concerns, arguing that Trump’s deployment of troops simply delivers on a campaign promise. They note he ran on a platform of mass deportations and fighting crime in major cities.

    “There’s a problem to be dealt with there,” said James E. Campbell, professor emeritus of political science at the University at Buffalo. “He has the constitutional authority to employ the National Guard, and that’s part of the powers of commander in chief in Article II. What’s peculiar here is some cities don’t want the help — or at least the leaders of the cities.”

    While the courts will ultimately settle the legal questions of what Trump can do, he seems to be betting that he can put Democratic leaders in a defensive position at a time when polls show the vast majority of Americans are worried about crime.

    When Illinois’ Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker pushed back this weekend against Trump’s Chicago plans, accusing the president of “threatening to go to war with an American city,” Trump insisted he was not spoiling for a fight.

    “We’re not going to war,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We’re going to clean up our cities.”

    Democrats say Trump is scaremongering about crime in American cities to score points against his political enemies, noting that homicides and other violent crimes have dropped over the last five years in cities across the nation.

    According to a recent analysis by the Council on Criminal Justice, a policy think tank, violent crime is lower in most cities than the pandemic peak of 2020-21. But the report noted that most of the decline in the national homicide rate has been driven by large drops in cities with high homicide rates, such as Baltimore and St Louis. More than half of sample cities continue to experience homicide levels above pre-2020 rates.

    For many Americans, crime remains a potent political issue.

    About 81% of Americans and 68% of Democrats, according to a recent survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, see crime as a “major problem” in large cities.

    But it remains to be seen if Americans will warm to Trump’s hard-line tactics: about 55% of Americans in the AP poll said it’s acceptable for the U.S. military and National Guard to assist local police in big cities, but less than a third support federal troops taking control of city police departments.

    ::

    Throughout the 2024 election, Trump threatened to deploy the National Guard to fight crime.

    “In cities where there has been a complete breakdown of law and order, where the fundamental rights of our citizens are being intolerably violated,” he promised in his Agenda47 campaign platform. “I will not hesitate to send in federal assets including the National Guard until safety is restored.”

    Still, there was some shock when Trump deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines to L.A. in June after a clash erupted in the heavily Latino city of Paramount as immigration agents ratcheted up his deportation agenda.

    The conflict fell short of an all-out collapse of law and order. After Border Patrol agents were spotted setting up a staging area outside a Home Depot, hundreds of protesters gathered, some hurled rocks at federal vehicles as agents fired tear gas and flash-bang grenades at the crowd. Within hours, Trump ordered 2,000 National Guard soldiers to L.A.— against the will of California Gov. Gavin Newsom — to protect federal agents and property.

    Sending in the National Guard without a governor’s consent was a highly unusual step. The last time it happened was in 1965, when Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect civil rights marchers marching from Selma to Montgomery.

    But L.A. was not a one-off for Trump. In August, Trump announced he would take federal control of Washington, D.C.’s police department and activate National Guard troops to help “reestablish law and order.” The city, he said, had been “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people.”

    Dist. Atty. Brian Schwalb, the elected attorney general of the District of Columbia, argued “there is no crime emergency” in D.C. “Violent crime in DC reached historic 30-year lows last year,” Schwalb noted, “and is down another 26% so far this year.”

    But Trump put Democrats on the defensive as he seized on a handful of violent cases in the nation’s capital: two Israeli embassy staffers fatally gunned down in May, a congressional intern shot dead in June and an administration staffer assaulted in an attempted carjacking in August.

    And he has adopted a similar strategy as he threatens to send troops to Chicago, highlighting a violent Labor Day weekend, in which nine people were killed and more than 50 injured across the city.

    Chicago has long struggled with violent crime, but city officials note that homicides and shootings have declined, putting the city on track for its lowest homicide rate in half a century.

    Mayor Brandon Johnson said homicides are down 30% in the last year in Chicago and his police department has taken 24,000 guns off the street, most of which came from Republican-led states, since he took office in May 2023.

    “This stunt that this president is attempting to execute is not real. It doesn’t help drive us towards a more safe, affordable, big city,” Johnson said last month as he called on Trump to release $800 million in violence prevention funds that the federal government cut in April.

    Already, Trump has declared implausibly quick results in curbing crime in Washington, D.C..

    “D.C. was a hellhole and now it’s safe,” the president declared less than two weeks after deploying troops to the nation’s capital. “Within one week, we will have no crime in Chicago.”

    When asked about Trump’s strategy, Adam Gelb, the president and chief executive of the Council on Criminal Justice, said the obvious challenge was the Trump administration’s solutions tended to be, “by definition, short term dopamine hits and not sustainable long term solutions.”

    “That’s what history tells us: we can have short-term impact with shocks to the system like this, but they tend to be fleeting.”

    Asked what would happen if the shock to the system was permanent, Gelb said he did not know.

    “It hasn’t been tested,” Gelb said, “not in this country with respect to deployment of troops in massive numbers.”

    Ultimately, Gelb said, Trump’s incursion into cities was “testing Americans’ tolerance for crime and militarization.”

    “If there’s a perception that these tactics are responsible for dramatic reductions in crime,” he asked, “will people become more tolerant of them?”

    ::

    Trump has suggested that Americans will allow him unlimited powers if he is perceived as stopping crime.

    “Most people are saying, ‘If you call him a dictator, if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants,’ ” Trump said last month in a televised Cabinet meeting. “I am not a dictator, by the way,”

    “I’m the president of the United States,” he added. “If I think our country is in danger — and it is in danger in these cities — I can do it.”

    Daniel Treisman, a professor of political science at UCLA, said Trump is “the most extreme case yet of a leader who comes to power in a long-established democracy and wants to act like an authoritarian — to break down all restrictions on his power and intimidate his enemies.”

    Most alarming of all, he said, was the Trump administration’s purging of professionals from federal agencies such as the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation in favor of loyalists.

    The co-author of “Spin Dictators: The Changing Face of Tyranny in the 21st century,” Treisman said Trump’s aims appeared to closely resemble those of Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary, or Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador.

    “I would like to believe that he will face a lot more obstacles than those leaders did,” Treisman said.

    Even if a majority of Americans think Trump is right that crime is a problem — or a substantial number support indefinite occupations of American cities or the elimination of due process — some argue that doesn’t make it democratic.

    “There’s no such thing as electing a president to undo democracy and violate the rule of law,” Goitein said. “He can’t say, ‘Well, the American people elected me to shred the Constitution.’ ”

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    Jenny Jarvie

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  • Supreme Court upholds ‘roving patrols’ for immigration arrests in Los Angeles

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    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday for the Trump administration and agreed U.S. immigration agents may stop and detain anyone they suspect is in the U.S. illegally based on little more than working at a car wash, speaking Spanish or having brown skin.

    In a 6-3 vote, the justices granted an emergency appeal and lifted a Los Angeles judge’s order that barred “roving patrols” from snatching people off Southern California streets based on how they look, what language they speak, what work they do or where they happen to be.

    In a concurring opinion, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said federal law says “immigration officers ‘may briefly detain’ an individual ‘for questioning’ if they have ‘a reasonable suspicion, based on specific articulable facts, that the person being questioned … is an alien illegally in the United States’.”

    “Immigration stops based on reasonable suspicion of illegal presence have been an important component of U.S. immigration enforcement for decades, across several presidential administrations,” he said.

    The three liberal justices dissented.

    Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the decision “yet another grave misuse of our emergency docket. We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job. Rather than stand idly by while our constitutional freedoms are lost, I dissent.”

    “The Government … has all but declared that all Latinos, U.S. citizens or not, who work low wage jobs are fair game to be seized at any time, taken away from work, and held until they provide proof of their legal status to the agents’ satisfaction,” Sotomayor wrote.

    Sotomayor also disagreed with Kavanaugh’s assertions.

    “Immigration agents are not conducting ‘brief stops for questioning,’ as the concurrence would like to believe. They are seizing people using firearms, physical violence, and warehouse detentions,” she wrote. “Nor are undocumented immigrants the only ones harmed by the Government’s conduct. United States citizens are also being seized, taken from their jobs, and prevented from working to support themselves and their families.”

    The decision is a significant victory for President Trump, clearing the way for his oft-promised “largest Mass Deportation Operation” in American history.

    Beginning in early June, Trump’s appointees targeted Los Angeles with aggressive street sweeps that ensnared longtime residents, legal immigrants and even U.S. citizens.

    A coalition of civil rights groups and local attorneys challenged the cases of three immigrants and two U.S. citizens caught up in the chaotic arrests, claiming they’d been grabbed without reasonable suspicion — a violation of the 4th Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches and seizures.

    On July 11, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong issued a temporary restraining order barring stops based solely on race or ethnicity, language, location or employment, either alone or in combination.

    On July 28, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

    The case remains in its early phases, with hearings set for a preliminary injunction this month. But the Department of Justice argued even a brief limit on mass arrests constituted a “irreparable injury” to the government.

    A few days later, Trump’s lawyers asked the Supreme Court to set aside Frimpong’s order. They said agents should be allowed to act on the assumption that Spanish-speaking Latinos who work as day laborers, at car washes or in landscaping and agriculture are likely to lack legal status.

    “Reasonable suspicion is a low bar — well below probable cause,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer wrote in his appeal. Agents can consider “the totality of the circumstances” when making stops, he said, including that “illegal presence is widespread in the Central District [of California], where 1 in every 10 people is an illegal alien.”

    Both sides said the region’s diverse demographics support their view of the law. In an application to join the suit, Los Angeles and 20 other Southern California municipalities argued that “half the population of the Central District” now meet the government’s criteria for reasonable suspicion.

    Roughly 10 million Latinos live in the seven counties covered by the order, and almost as many speak a language other than English at home.

    Sauer also questioned whether the plaintiffs who sued had standing because they were not likely to be arrested again.

    That argument was the subject of sharp and extended questioning in the 9th Circuit, where a three-judge panel ultimately rejected it.

    “Agents have conducted many stops in the Los Angeles area within a matter of weeks, not years, some repeatedly in the same location,” the panel wrote in its July 28 opinion denying the stay.

    One plaintiff was stopped twice in the span of 10 days, evidence of a “real and immediate threat,” that he or any of the others could be stopped again, the 9th Circuit said.

    Days after that decision, heavily armed Border Patrol agents sprang from the back of a Penske moving truck, snatching workers from the parking lot of a Westlake Home Depot in apparent defiance of the courts.

    Immigrants rights advocates had urged the justices not to intervene.

    “The raids have followed an unconstitutional pattern that officials have vowed to continue,” they said. Ruling for Trump would authorize “an extraordinarily expansive dragnet, placing millions of law-abiding people at imminent risk of detention by federal agents.”

    The judge’s order had applied in an area that included Los Angeles and Orange counties as well as Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

    Savage reported from Washington, Sharp from Los Angeles.

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    David G. Savage, Sonja Sharp

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  • Commentary: ‘What’s to prevent a national police force?’ Not this National Guard ruling

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    A federal judge ruled Tuesday that President Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles was illegal, which the sane and democracy-loving among us should applaud — though of course an appeal is coming.

    During the trial, though, a concerning but little-noticed exchange popped up between lawyers for the state of California and Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, who was in charge of the federalized National Guard forces in L.A. It should have been an explosive, red-flag moment highlighting the pressure our military leaders are under to shake off their oath to the Constitution in favor of fealty to Trump.

    Sherman testified that he objected to National Guard involvement in a show-of-force operation in MacArthur Park, where Latino families often congregate.

    That action, Sherman said, was originally slated for Father’s Day, an especially busy time at the park. Internal documents showed it was considered it a “high-risk” operation. Sherman said he feared his troops would be pushed into confrontations with civilians if Border Patrol became overwhelmed by the crowds on that June Sunday.

    Gregory Bovino, in charge of the immigration efforts in L.A. for the Border Patrol, questioned Sherman’s “loyalty to the country,” Sherman testified, for just showing hesitation about the wisdom and legality of an order.

    It’s the pressure that “you’re not being patriotic if you don’t blow by the law and violate it and just bend the knee and and exhibit complete fealty and loyalty to Trump,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said Tuesday. And it’s a warning of what’s to come as Trump continues to press for military involvement in civilian law enforcement across the country.

    For the record, Sherman has served our country for decades, earning along the way the prestigious Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star and the Meritorious Service Medal among other accolades.

    The MacArthur Park operation, according to the Department of Homeland Security, was itself little more than a performative display of power “to demonstrate, through a show of presence, the capacity and freedom of maneuver of federal law enforcement within the Los Angeles,” according to agency documents presented in court. It was dubbed Operation Excalibur, in honor of the legendary sword of King Arthur that granted him divine right to rule, a point also included in court documents.

    But none of that mattered. Instead, Sherman was pushed to exhibit the kind of blind loyalty to a dear leader that you’d expect to be demanded in dictatorships like those of North Korea or Hungary. Loyalty that confuses — or transforms — a duty to the Constitution with allegiance to Trump. Military experts warn that Sherman’s experience isn’t an isolated incident.

    “There’s a chilling effect against pushing back or at least openly questioning any kind of orders,” Rachel E. VanLandingham, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, told me. She’s former active duty judge advocate in the U.S. Air Force who now teaches at Southwestern Law School and serves as a national security law expert.

    VanLandingham sees the leadership of our armed forces under pressure “to not engage in the critical thinking, which, as commanders, they are required to do, and to instead go along to get along.” She sees Sherman’s testimony as a “telling glimpse into the wearing away” of that crucial independence.

    Such a shift in allegiance would undermine any court order keeping the military out of civilian law enforcement, leaving Trump with exactly the boots on the ground power he has sought since his first term. This is not theoretical.

    Through Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Trump has purged the top ranks of the military of those who aren’t loyal to him. In February, Hegseth fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Black soldier who championed diversity in the armed forces. Hegseth has also purged the head of the Pentagon’s intelligence agency, the head of the National Security Agency, the chief of Naval Operations, multiple senior female military staff and senior military lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force. In August, he fired the head of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency after that general gave a truthful assessment of our bombing of Iran’s nuclear sites, angering Trump.

    At the same time, the military is being pushed farther into civilian affairs, and not just as erstwhile cops. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Hegseth ordered 600 military lawyers to serve as temporary immigration judges.

    Not to dive too deep into the convoluted immigration system, but these are civilian legal positions, another possible violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, VanLandingham points out.

    And beyond that, can a military lawyer — trained and bound to follow orders — really act as an impartial judge in proceedings where the administration’s wish to deport is clearly known?

    Goodbye due process, goodbye fair trial.

    That “looks like martial law when you have militarized … judicial proceedings,” VanLandingham said. “How can we trust they are making unbiased decisions? You can’t.”

    And even though Sherman pushed back on a full-blown military presence in MacArthur Park, that raid did happen. Federal agents marched through, about three weeks after Father’s Day, with National Guard troops remaining in their vehicles on the perimeter. It was Hegseth himself who authorized the mission.

    Sherman also said on the stand that he was told there were “exceptions” to the Posse Comitatus Act — the law being debated in the trial that prevents the military from being used as civilian law enforcement — and that the president had the power to decide what those exceptions were.

    “So your understanding is that while [some actions] are on the list of prohibited functions, you can do them under some circumstances?” Judge Charles Breyer asked.

    “That’s the legal advice I received,” Sherman answered.

    “And the president has the authority to make that decision?” Breyer asked.

    “The president has the authority,” Sherman answered.

    But does he?

    Breyer also asked during the trial, if the president’s powers to both command troops and interpret law are so boundless, “What’s to prevent a national police force?” What, in effect, could stop Trump’s Excalibur-inspired inclinations?

    For now, it’s the courts and ethical, mid-level commanders like Sherman, whose common-sense bravery and decency kept the military out of MacArthur Park.

    Men and women who understand that the oaths they have sworn are to our country, not the man who would be king.

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    Anita Chabria

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  • Trump deployment of military troops to Los Angeles was illegal, judge rules in blistering opinion

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    A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration’s deployment of U.S. military troops to Los Angeles during immigration raids earlier this year was illegal.

    U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer found the deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which limited the use of the military for law enforcement purposes. He stayed his ruling to give the administration a chance to appeal.

    “President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have stated their intention to call National Guard troops into service in other cities across the country … thus creating a national police force with the President as its chief,” Breyer wrote.

    The ruling could have implications beyond Los Angeles.

    Trump, who sent roughly 5,000 Marines and National Guard troops to L.A. in June in a move that was opposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, issued an executive order declaring a public safety emergency in D.C. The order invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act that places the Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control.

    In June, Breyer ruled that Trump broke the law when he mobilized thousands of California National Guard members against the state’s wishes.

    In a 36-page decision, Breyer wrote that Trump’s actions “were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

    But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals paused that court order, allowing the troops to remain in Los Angeles while the case plays out in federal court. The appellate court found the president had broad, though not “unreviewable,” authority to deploy the military in American cities.

    In his Tuesday ruling Breyer added: “The evidence at trial established that Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles. In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act.”

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    Jenny Jarvie

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  • At Labor Day rallies, speakers decry Trump

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    Thousands of union members and others participated in marches, rallies and picnics on Labor Day throughout the Los Angeles region and across the country on Monday, decrying actions by the Trump administration that they say weaken unions and harm workers while strengthening and emboldening major corporations and the wealthy.

    A White House proclamation Monday said President Trump’s actions are “reversing decades of neglect and finally putting American Workers first” by rewriting tax laws and creating a better economic climate for businesses.

    His critics say he is undermining, in historic ways, the government and labor-union infrastructure established to protect workers — and therefore hurting individual workers.

    Participants at a massive Wilmington rally and parade — organized by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor — united over a common foe: Trump.

    “Donald Trump has gone too far,” said state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles), as she and others linked typical Labor Day rhetoric directly to immigration raids. “On this Labor Day, we have an American president who takes parents from their children and workers from their jobs.”

    The raids are no longer about border security, Durazo said, but “about breaking the backbone of our economy and terrorizing families.”

    ”Fighting for workers’ rights means fighting for immigrant rights,” said Angelica Salas, the executive director of the immigrant advocacy group CHIRLA.

    The Trump administration, meanwhile, marked Labor Day by extolling the American worker and calling attention to new trade policies — including widespread tariffs — intended to spur a return of manufacturing to the United States.

    “Every day, my Administration is restoring the dignity of labor and putting the American worker first,” Trump said in a Labor Day proclamation. “We are making it easier to buy American and hire American, breathing new life into our manufacturing cities, and securing fair trade deals that protect our jobs and reward our productivity. … Under my leadership, we are bringing jobs back to America — and those jobs are going to American-born workers.”

    Tariff chaos at port

    The effect of tariffs and their uneven rollout is widely debated, including within Trump’s Republican Party, although a Congress controlled by Republicans has not acted to stop them.

    Trump’s tariffs — and the threat of them — have triggered unpredictable boom-and-bust cycles at L.A.’s ports, Mickey Chavez, president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Southern California District Council, said Monday.

    Standing with his French bulldog Gucci under an ILWU tent after the Wilmington parade, the union foreman described how the mood has fluctuated dramatically at the nearby union hall where ILWU members wait for work.

    “It’s been chaotic, more than anything, with the tariffs,” Chavez said as smoke from a barbecue a few tents over curled past his ILWU beret. “Either the workers really get a lot of work because they’re trying to beat the tariffs, or then [Trump] sets out more tariffs and the work slows down.”

    The uncertainty has made it difficult for workers to plan, particularly those at the lowest level, who are most affected by slowdowns.

    “If he sends out a tweet or makes a decision, we never know if there’s going to be work or not, so it’s been in flux,” the fourth-generation ILWU member said.

    Chavez’s great-grandfather first joined the union in the 1940s and his family has worked at the ports ever since. But he has never experienced anything like this before, where work is so dependent on the whims of a single man, he said.

    Trump bans most federal bargaining

    On the same day as his Labor Day proclamation, Trump issued an order banning collective bargaining at the International Trade Administration and the Patent and Trademark Office within the Commerce Department; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, and the National Weather Service; as well as at NASA and the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

    Trump cited national security concerns as providing legal grounds for the unilateral edict. The latest action follows a March order outlawing collective bargaining for a majority of the federal workforce, citing the same justification.

    Unions immediately filed suit, putting Trump’s action on hold.

    A study from the left-leaning Center for American Progress estimated that Trump’s orders have stripped 82% of civilian federal workers of their right to bargain. The total number of workers whose contracts Trump has abrogated exceeds 1 million, an estimated one-fifteenth of American workers covered by a union contract.

    In addition, Trump fired National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox, although the National Labor Relations Act stipulates that board members serve for five years and her term was not to end until August 2028. Her dismissal has paralyzed the labor board by leaving it without a quorum. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to stop her dismissal as part of ongoing litigation.

    At least one speaker at the Wilmington rally spoke of the need for organized labor to support California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts to redraw state congressional districts to flip as many as five seats from Republican to Democrat — a strategy to offset actions taken in Texas — urged on by Trump — to do exactly the opposite.

    Labor groups have already put millions of dollars behind it and have committed to help lead voter-mobilization efforts.

    Unlike in Texas, Newsom’s plan must be approved by voters, who will have the opportunity to support it by voting for Proposition 50.

    Passage of the measure at the ballot box is essential, state Assemblyman Mark Gonzalez (D-Los Angeles) said at the Wilmington event, because Trump is already “destroying the fabric of the labor movement” months into his second term.

    California Republicans point out that the measure unravels reforms meant to make California districts more representative and competitive. Opponents of the retaliatory gerrymander include former California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

    Festive vibes

    In Wilmington, although the thousands of union members and allies were fired up, the rally and parade retained a festive vibe.

    On a truck at the front of the procession, leaders of local and state labor groups danced with elected officials as Bob Marley and the Wailers sang about standing up for rights over a loudspeaker.

    Hammerhead cranes at the nearby port facilities dotted the horizon as classic cars turned down E Street, and posters and T-shirts in the crowd advertised membership in an alphabet soup of union locals.

    Children sharing space with political fliers in oversized wagons blew bubbles, and teenage girls from a local high school twirled pom-poms.

    At the helm of a massive shiny black truck bearing the Teamsters insignia, a driver clenched a cigar between his teeth as he steered with one hand and pulled an overhead horn with the other. Representatives from the local branch of the sheet metal workers union carried a carefully crafted, welded brown California bear in the back of their truck.

    Alongside carpenters and nurses and dockworkers, there were also representatives from a cadre of entertainment industry unions representing actors, writers and production workers.

    Rallies across the Southland and the country were united under the banner of May Day Strong, a partnership of labor, political and environmental organizations. The targets of the rallies included federal agencies carrying out immigration raids, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    “The billionaires continue to wage a war on working people, with their cronies in the administration, ICE and law enforcement backing up their attacks,” according to the organizers’ toolkit. “This Labor Day we will continue to stand strong, fighting for public schools over private profits, healthcare over hedge funds, shared prosperity over billionaire-bought politics.”

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    Julia Wick, Howard Blume

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  • Trial in National Guard lawsuit tests whether Trump will let courts limit authority

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    Minutes after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth trumpeted plans to “flood” Washington with National Guard members, a senior U.S. military official took the stand in federal court in California to defend the controversial deployment of troops to Los Angeles.

    The move during protests this summer has since become the model for President Trump’s increasing use of the military to police American streets.

    But the trial, which opened Monday in San Francisco, turns on the argument by California that troops called up by Trump have been illegally engaged in civilian law enforcement.

    “The military in Southern California are so tied in with ICE and other law enforcement agencies that they are practically indistinguishable,” California Deputy Atty. Gen. Meghan Strong told the court Tuesday.

    “Los Angeles is just the beginning,” the deputy attorney general said. “President Trump has hinted at sending troops even farther, naming Baltimore and even Oakland here in the Bay Area as his next potential targets.”

    Senior U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer said in court that Hegseth’s statements Monday could tip the scales in favor of the state, which must show the law is likely to be violated again so long as troops remain.

    But the White House hasn’t let the pending case stall its agenda. Nor have Trump officials been fazed by a judge’s order restricting so-called roving patrols used by federal agents to indiscriminately sweep up suspected immigrants.

    After Border Patrol agents last week sprang from a Penske moving truck and snatched up workers at a Westlake Home Depot — appearing to openly defy the court’s order — some attorneys warned the rule of law is crumbling in plain sight.

    “It is just breathtaking,” said Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel, part of the coalition challenging the use of racial profiling by immigration enforcement. “Somewhere there are founding fathers who are turning over in their graves.”

    The chaotic immigration arrests that swept through Los Angeles this summer had all but ceased after the original July 11 order, which bars agents from snatching people off the streets without first establishing reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.

    An Aug. 1 ruling in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals seemed to assure they could not resume again for weeks, if ever.

    For the Department of Justice, the 9th Circuit loss was the latest blow in a protracted judicial beatdown, as many of the administration’s most aggressive moves have been held back by federal judges and tied up in appellate courts.

    Trump “is losing consistently in the lower courts, almost nine times out of 10,” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law.

    In the last two weeks alone, the 9th Circuit also found Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship unconstitutional and signaled it would probably rule in favor of a group of University of California researchers hoping to claw back funding from Trump’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

    Elsewhere in the U.S., the D.C. Circuit Court appeared poised to block Trump’s tariffs, while a federal judge in Miami temporarily stopped construction at the migrant detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz.

    California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has noted that his Department of Justice had sued the administration nearly 40 times.

    But even the breakneck pace of current litigation is glacial compared with the actions of immigration agents and federalized troops.

    Federal officials have publicly relished big-footing California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who have repeatedly warned the city is being used as a “petri dish” for executive force.

    On Monday, the White House seemed to vindicate them by sending the National Guard to Washington.

    Speaking for more than half an hour, Trump rattled off a list of American cities he characterized as under siege.

    Asked whether he would deploy troops to those cities as well, the president said, “We’re just gonna see what happens.”

    “We’re going to look at New York. And if we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago,” he said. “Hopefully, L.A. is watching.”

    This image taken from video shows U.S. Border Patrol agents jumping out of a Penske box truck during an immigration raid at a Home Depot in Los Angeles on Aug. 6, 2025.

    (Matt Finn / Fox News via Associated Press)

    The U.S. Department of Justice argues that the same power that allows the president to federalize troops and deploy them on American streets also creates a “Constitutional exception” to the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th century law that bars troops from civilian police action.

    California lawyers say no such exception exists.

    “I’m looking at this case and trying to figure out, is there any limitation to the use of federal forces?” Judge Breyer said.

    Even if they keep taking losses, Trump administration officials “don’t have much to lose” by picking fights, said Ilya Somin, law professor at George Mason University and a constitutional scholar at the Cato Institute.

    “The base likes it,” Somin said of the Trump’s most controversial moves. “If they lose, they can consider whether they defy the court.”

    Other experts agreed.

    “The bigger question is whether the courts can actually do anything to enforce the orders that they’re making,” said David J. Bier, an immigration expert at the Cato Institute. “There’s no indication to me that [Department of Homeland Security agents] are changing their behavior.”

    Some scholars speculated the losses in lower courts might actually be a strategic sacrifice in the war to extend presidential power in the Supreme Court.

    “It’s not a strategy whose primary ambition is to win,” said professor Mark Graber of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. “They are losing cases right and left in the district court, but consistently having district court orders stayed in the Supreme Court.”

    Win or lose in the lower courts, the political allure of targeting California is potent, argued Segall, the law professor who studies the Supreme Court.

    “There is an emotional hostility to California that people on the West Coast don’t understand,” Segall said. “California … is deemed a separate country almost.”

    A favorable ruling in the Supreme Court could pave the way for deployments across the country, he and others warned.

    “We don’t want the military on America’s streets, period, full stop,” Segall said. “I don’t think martial law is off the table.”

    Pedro Vásquez Perdomo, a day laborer who is one of the plaintiffs in the Southern California case challenging racial profiling by immigration enforcement, has said the case is bigger than him.

    He took to the podium outside the American Civil Liberties Union’s downtown offices Aug. 4, his voice trembling as he spoke about the temporary restraining order — upheld days earlier by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — that stood between his fellow Angelenos and unchecked federal authority.

    “I don’t want silence to be my story,” he said. “I want justice for me and for every other person whose humanity has been denied.”

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    Sonja Sharp

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  • Trump administration asks Supreme Court to lift limits on ICE’s ‘roving patrols’

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    The Trump administration on Thursday petitioned the Supreme Court to free up its mass deportation efforts across Southern California, seeking to lift a ban on “roving patrols” implemented after a lower court found such tactics likely violate the 4th Amendment.

    The restrictions, initially handed down in a July 11 order, bar masked and heavily armed agents from snatching people off the streets of Los Angeles and cities in seven other counties without first establishing reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.

    Under the 4th Amendment, reasonable suspicion cannot be based solely on race, ethnicity, language, location or employment, either alone or in combination, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong of Los Angeles found in her original decision.

    The Trump administration said in its appeal to the high court that Frimpong’s ruling, upheld last week by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California by hanging the prospect of contempt over every investigative stop.”

    Lawyers behind the lawsuits challenging the immigration tactics immediately questioned the Trump administration’s arguments.

    “This is unprecedented,” said Mark Rosenbaum of Public Counsel, part of the coalition of civil rights groups and individual attorneys challenging cases of three immigrants and two U.S. citizens swept up in chaotic arrests. “The brief is asking the Supreme Court to bless open season on anybody on Los Angeles who happens to be Latino.”

    The move comes barely 24 hours after heavily armed Border Patrol agents snared workers outside a Westlake Home Depot after popping out of the back of a Penske moving truck — actions some experts said appeared to violate the court’s order.

    If the Supreme Court takes up the case, many now think similar aggressive and seemingly indiscriminate enforcement actions could once again become the norm.

    “Anything having to do with law enforcement and immigration, the Supreme Court seems to be giving the president free rein,” said Eric J. Segall, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law and a prominent scholar of the country’s highest court. “I think the court is going to side with the Trump administration.”

    The Department of Justice has repeatedly argued that the temporary restraining order causes “manifest irreparable harm” to the government. Officials are especially eager to see it overturned because California’s Central District is the single most populous in the country, and home to a plurality of undocumented immigrants.

    In its Supreme Court petition, the Justice Department alleged that roughly 10% of the region’s residents are in the U.S. illegally.

    “According to estimates from Department of Homeland Security data, nearly 4 million illegal aliens are in California, and nearly 2 million are in the Central District of California. Los Angeles County alone had an estimated 951,000 illegal aliens as of 2019 — by far the most of any county in the United States,” the petition said.

    President Trump made mass deportations a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, and has poured billions in federal funding and untold political capital into the arrest, incarceration and removal of immigrants. Though Justice Department lawyers told the appellate court there was no policy or quota, administration officials and those involved in planning its deportation operations have repeatedly cited 3,000 arrests a day and a million deportations a year as objectives.

    District and appellate courts have stalled, blocked and sometimes reversed many of those efforts in recent weeks, forcing the return of a Maryland father mistakenly deported to Salvadoran prison, compelling the release of student protesters from ICE detention, preserving birthright citizenship for children of immigrant parents and stopping construction of “Alligator Alcatraz.”

    But little of the president’s immigration agenda has so far been tested in the Supreme Court.

    If the outcome is unfavorable for Trump, some observers wonder whether he will let the justices limit his agenda.

    “Even if they were to lose in the Supreme Court, I have serious doubts they will stop,” Segall said.

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    Sonja Sharp

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  • Judge allows UCLA baseball team to return to Jackie Robinson Stadium

    Judge allows UCLA baseball team to return to Jackie Robinson Stadium

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    The UCLA baseball team was cleared to resume using its baseball stadium at noon Tuesday after a judge temporarily lifted an order barring the team from the stadium on the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ West Los Angeles campus.

    U.S. District Judge David O. Carter entered an order Monday restoring UCLA’s access to Jackie Robinson Stadium through July 4, allowing the team to complete its coming season. After that, the stadium will face an uncertain fate.

    After a four-week trial this summer, Carter ruled the lease to UCLA of 10 acres on which the stadium sits was illegal because it did not predominantly focus on service to veterans. He ordered the stadium cordoned off in late September.

    A class-action lawsuit alleged that the VA had failed in its duty to provide adequate housing for disabled veterans and that its leases of portions of the 388-acre campus for other purposes violated the 1888 deed of the land to the U.S. government for the “establishment, construction and permanent maintenance” of a home for disabled soldiers.

    In an attempt to regain use of the stadium, UCLA attorney Raymond Cardozo said the university was willing to nearly double its rent to $600,000 and release two acres for housing. Carter initially spurned that offer while working with attorneys in the case to identify parcels where an initial 106 modular units of temporary housing could be placed.

    After selecting the stadium’s parking lot and two other parcels during a hearing Friday, Carter abruptly changed direction, asking attorneys for the veterans who sued why they shouldn’t take the $600,000 and allow the baseball team to play at the stadium when the veterans were not using it. He gave them the weekend to confer with their clients.

    Returning to court Monday, attorney Roman Silberfeld said they objected to the terms the judge described.

    But Carter said he thought it would not make sense to pass up money that could be used for housing now.

    He again urged the university and veterans to come up with a “holistic” agreement by July 4, when the grace period expires, and made it clear he still considers the stadium as a potential site for housing. He suggested that one option would be for UCLA to use more than 30 acres it owns in the Palos Verdes Peninsula for a new stadium.

    UCLA praised the decision in a statement attributed to athletic director Martin Jarmond.

    “We are excited to practice and play in Jackie Robinson Stadium this season,” it said. “Our young men have been working hard and keeping a positive attitude throughout this period of uncertainty, and we are pleased that they will be able to resume their regular training at the stadium.”

    Rob Reynolds, a veteran who acts as a spokesman for the plaintiffs, said Carter’s change of heart “caught everybody by surprise.”

    Reynolds said the veterans felt insulted that the amount offered was less than the UCLA baseball coach’s salary.

    “It’s a travesty for them to see them get them come back for nothing,” he said.

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    Doug Smith

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  • Judge halts expulsion of 5th grader over rap lyrics, squirt gun emoji until trial

    Judge halts expulsion of 5th grader over rap lyrics, squirt gun emoji until trial

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    A judge has ruled that an elite Mulholland Drive private school must reverse the expulsion of a 5th grade student over emails sent to a peer containing rap lyrics and the squirt gun emoji until the case can be heard at trial.

    On Oct. 17, the parents of the expelled student filed a lawsuit against the Curtis School and Head of School Meera Ratnesar, alleging that the expulsion was “arbitrary and capricious” and that the school provided no evidence of a policy being violated or of the classmate feeling threatened.

    This week Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephen I. Goorvitch approved an order filed by the parent’s attorneys to temporarily halt the boy’s expulsion, according to court papers filed Thursday. The attorneys argued that expulsion is a harmful disruption to the student’s education and socialization, according to court documents.

    The judge’s order took effect immediately and the student was free to return to school on Friday, according to court documents. However, the decision can be reconsidered if evidence emerges that the student poses a danger to students or faculty, and the school remains at liberty to impose alternative disciplinary measures, according to court documents.

    The Curtis School is a prestigious elementary school with an annual tuition of $38,000 where many celebrities, such as Victoria and David Beckham, have sent their children.

    School representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the order. In a statement shared last week, the school said it was disappointed by the litigation and committed to ensuring a safe and secure campus for all, but it declined to comment on individual students.

    The student was expelled by Ratnesar on Oct. 1 over two email exchanges with a classmate.

    On Sept. 5, the boy and a classmate sent emails back and forth containing lyrics from the YNW Melly song “Murder on My Mind,” which references guns and violence, according to court documents. Then on Sept. 25, the students engaged in another email exchange during their math class in which the boy sent messages on his school-issued laptop saying, “Shut up” and “I hate you” and included several green squirt gun emojis, and then said, “You dead yet,” to which the classmate responded, “No y.”

    The parents allege that the boys are friends and hung out together immediately following the email exchanges, according to court documents. They also say that their son is a straight-A student who has faced no prior disciplinary action during his three years at the school, according to court documents.

    No disciplinary action was taken against the classmate, who, according to email records, instigated the Sept. 5 exchange of rap lyrics.

    “We are deeply disappointed by your decision to base expulsion on emails between two classmates who both showed a willingness to talk about guns based on a song’s lyrics,” the parents wrote in an Oct. 2 email to Ratnesar, urging her to reconsider the expulsion.

    Ratnesar acknowledged in an Oct. 1 email that the classmate started the email exchange but said their son’s “contribution of lyric lines in addition to continuing to communicate threatening emojis and language 20 days after the lyric exchange, is a serious infraction that we cannot ignore.”

    The parents’ attorneys allege that Ratnesar has a reputation for “unequal and arbitrary treatment of students” and point to, as evidence, several reviews left by former families at the school that discuss alleged favoritism and discriminatory treatment by the head of school.

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    Clara Harter

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  • One arrested as UCLA police dismantle ‘Gaza solidarity sukkah’ and disperse student protest

    One arrested as UCLA police dismantle ‘Gaza solidarity sukkah’ and disperse student protest

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    One person was arrested at UCLA on Monday night on suspicion of failing to disperse after the university’s Police Department ordered around 40 protesters to leave Dickson Court North, where they had established a “Gaza solidarity Sukkah” and a handful of tents, authorities said.

    Student protesters erected the sukkah Monday morning to observe the Jewish holiday of Sukkot and demand the university divest from companies that do business with Israel and call for an end to the war in Palestine. By Monday evening, students had also set up a small number of tents.

    At 3:20 p.m., UCPD issued a statement saying that students were assembling in an area not designated for public expression, using unauthorized structures and amplified sound — all of which violate the protest policies enacted in September in response to the massive pro-Palestinian protests that rattled campus in April.

    According to reporting from the Daily Bruin, a group of pro-Israel counterprotesters arrived in Dickson Court North around 8 p.m., and pro-Palestinian protesters began dismantling their tents around 8:20 p.m.

    The department issued an order to disperse about 10 minutes later, after which most of the protesters left the area, according to UCPD. Hired security guards then removed the sukkah, according to the Bruin.

    Sukkot is a weeklong Jewish holiday that celebrates the fall harvest and commemorates the biblical story of the Israelites wandering in the desert for 40 years after escaping slavery in Egypt. During this time, Jews eat, dwell and pray in outdoor structures known as sukkahs to remember the fragile structures their ancestors lived in after fleeing Egypt.

    Student protest organizers said they were using the holiday to call attention to the displacement and death inflicted on Palestinians and Lebanese people by Israel.

    “I refuse to observe Sukkot as normal when university investments continue to fund the genocide of Palestinians,” said protest organizer Leah Jacobson in a statement. “The principle of pikuach nefesh, or saving a soul, demands we put other laws aside in order to preserve human life. I am here aligning my Jewish practice with my support for Palestinian liberation.”

    Protesters are demanding the university divest from weapons and surveillance system manufacturers that do business with Israel such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Boeing.

    The UC system has repeatedly opposed calls for divestment saying it impinges on the academic freedom of the university community. The UC system also states that tuition and fees are the primary funding sources for the University’s core operations and that none of these funds are used for investment purposes.

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    Clara Harter

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  • Where to pre-order Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond expansion for Magic the Gathering

    Where to pre-order Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond expansion for Magic the Gathering

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    Assassin’s Creed is the latest Universes Beyond expansion for Magic: The Gathering, and will be popping out of an unsuspecting haystack near you starting on July 5. The new set features a total of 100 mechanically unique cards inspired by the stealthy, stabby franchise.

    While these new cards won’t include characters or settings from the recently announced Assassin’s Creed Shadows, you can expect appearances from virtually every other corner of the Assassin’s Creed universe, including Altair, Ezio, Eivor, and more. If you’d like to add any of these new cards to your existing collection, the new expansion is available to pre-order in a variety of formats from Amazon and GameStop, which we’ve linked out to below, along with a list of their contents.

    Image: Wizards of the Coast

    The Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond Starter Kit is the fastest way to start playing with the new cards introduced in this set. Each box comes packaged with a pair of pre-constructed 60-card decks, which both feature a pair of Mythic Rare cards in addition to eight rares and a storage box for each deck, and a Learn-to-Play guide. Both decks are constructed exclusively with the new cards introduced with the new expansion. The Starter Kit is currently available to pre-order from Amazon or GameStop for $19.

    A stock photo of the Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond booster box for Magic: The Gathering

    Image: Wizards of the Coast

    The Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond set is introducing a slightly different take on the classic Booster Pack format with Beyond Boosters. These seven-card packs can include up to four rare cards, in addition to at least one foil art card and borderless art card. Each box comes with a total of 27 Beyond Boosters, and can be pre-ordered for around $131 from Amazon or from GameStop for $179.99. Individual Beyond Boosters are also available from GameStop for $7.99 each.

    Stock photo of the Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond bundle for Magic: The Gathering

    Image: Wizards of the Coast

    If you’re looking to supplement your existing MTG collection with cards from this new set, the Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond Bundle is the quickest way to do it. Each bundle is packaged with nine Beyond Boosters from the new set in addition to 40 lands (20 of which are foil cards). Each box also features a single exclusive alternate-art foil card and an Assassin’s Creed-themed spindown life counter. The $65 Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond Bundle is available to pre-order from Amazon and GameStop.

    A stock photo of the Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond Collector Boosters box for Magic: The Gathering

    Image: Wizards of the Coast

    The Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond set will also launch with Collector Booster Packs, perfect for scooping up all the tastiest foil and alternate-art cards introduced with this expansion. Each Collector Booster contains ten rare cards with at least one extended art and borderless art card in addition to at least two foil-etched cards. A box of 12 Collector Boosters can be pre-ordered from GameStop for $279.99 or from Amazon for around $308. Collector Boosters can also be pre-ordered piecemeal from GameStop for $27.99.

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    Alice Jovanée

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  • Star Wars Outlaws pre-order guide

    Star Wars Outlaws pre-order guide

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    Star Wars Outlaws, the open-world adventure from Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment, launches Aug. 30 for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. Players will take on the role of smuggler Kay Vess as they attempt to seek their fortune across a variety of new and classic locations in the Star Wars universe.

    While Respawn Entertainment’s open-world Star Wars Jedi: Survivor puts forth an unforgiving melee combat system akin to Dark Souls, Outlaws seems to channel gameplay elements from the Uncharted franchise. This includes sneaking around, quickly resorting to shooting first if things go sideways, and of course, an ample supply of left hooks.

    Image: Ubisoft / Massive Entertainment

    There are a three versions of Star Wars Outlaws that are available for pre-order. In this post, we’ll dig into:

    • Every pre-order option available, how much they cost, and where you can buy them
    • What bonuses each edition of Star Wars Outlaws includes

    Star Wars Outlaws pre-order editions

    Star Wars Outlaws standard edition

    Image: Ubisoft, Lucasfilm Ltd.

    Pre-ordering the $69.99 standard edition of the game will get you access to the Kessel Runner Bonus Pack which grants exclusive cosmetics for your ship and speeder. The standard version of Star Wars Outlaws is available to pre-order through Ubisoft, PlayStation, Xbox, the Epic Games Store, and Best Buy. Like most recent Ubisoft launches, there’s no Steam version in sight.

    If you intend to play the game on PC via the Ubisoft Connect store, digital retailer Gamesplanet is offering a small discount on pre-orders. Normally $69.99, you can get Star Wars Outlaws for $62.99.

    Star Wars Outlaws Gold Edition

    Image: Ubisoft, Lucasfilm Ltd.

    If you want three days of early access to Star Wars Outlaws, you’ll need to pre-order the $109.99 Gold Edition. This version of the game also gets you access to the season pass, which is currently slated to include at least two pieces of post-launch DLC, in addition to the “Jabba’s Gambit” mission at launch. You can currently reserve this version of Star Wars Outlaws from Ubisoft, PlayStation, Xbox, the Epic Games Store, and Best Buy.

    Star Wars Outlaws Ultimate Edition

    An image showing what’s included with the Star Wars Outlaws ultimate edition that costs $129.99. Primarily, it gives gamers 3 days of early access, plus extra story content and an abundance of cosmetic DLC.

    Image: Ubisoft, Lucasfilm Ltd.

    The digital-exclusive Ultimate Edition costs $129.99 and comes packaged with everything included in the cheaper versions. Additionally, this premium version includes additional cosmetics in the form of the Rogue Infiltrator and Sabacc Shark bundles, as well as a digital art book with concepts and storyboards from the game. Currently, you can reserve this version of the game from Ubisoft, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Games Store.

    Alternatively, if you want everything included with the Ultimate Edition but don’t want to pay the full price, you can subscribe to Ubisoft Plus for $17.99 a month. This plan grants you all the same benefits, including three-day early access, and is available on PC and consoles.

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    Alice Jovanée

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  • The Best Sick Day Standbys to Order in Chicago

    The Best Sick Day Standbys to Order in Chicago

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    Ponce’s pollo guisado is a Puerto Rican classic. | Ponce Restaurant

    Soups, stews, cookies, pancakes — and hot chicken wings to clear the sinuses

    Winter is the season of sickness: stuffy noses, raw throats, throbbing sinuses, and queasy stomachs. The only sensible response is to crawl into bed and stay there until the illness passes. But a human cannot live on NyQuil alone. Here’s a guide to dishes at Chicago restaurants that may not be able to cure everything that ails you but can certainly make recovery more pleasant.

    Patrons who are ill or experiencing symptoms can help keep hospitality workers safe by arranging for contact-free takeout and delivery.

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    Naomi Waxman

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  • Scottie Scheffler: World No 1 named PGA Tour Player of the Year for second consecutive season

    Scottie Scheffler: World No 1 named PGA Tour Player of the Year for second consecutive season

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    Scottie Scheffler has been voted PGA Tour player of the year over Masters champion Jon Rahm; a new season of golf begins on Thursday with The Sentry – live on Sky Sports Golf from 6pm on Thursday

    Last Updated: 03/01/24 7:54pm

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    Scottie Scheffler explained that he was thankful and relieved to win the 2023 Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass but added he was very tired following the tournament

    Scottie Scheffler explained that he was thankful and relieved to win the 2023 Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass but added he was very tired following the tournament

    Scottie Scheffler has been named PGA Tour Player of the Year as he won the Jack Nicklaus Award for a second consecutive year.

    Scheffler is the first player to win Player of the Year honours in back-to-back seasons since Tiger Woods won the award in three straight years from 2005-2007.

    The 27-year-old won twice during the 2022-23 season, successfully defending his title at the WM Phoenix Open and winning The Players Championship by five strokes.

    In 23 starts, Scheffler recorded 13 top-fives and 17 top-10s, both high marks for any player in a single season on the tour since 2005.

    He also set the PGA Tour record for most Official Money earned in a single season at $21,014,342, breaking his own record set last season ($14,046,910).

    The Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year awards are determined by a member vote, with PGA Tour members who played in at least 15 official FedExCup events during the 2022-23 season eligible to vote.

    Scheffler received 38 per cent of the vote for the Jack Nicklaus Award and was selected over four other nominees: Wyndham Clark, Viktor Hovland, Rory McIlroy and Jon Rahm.

    Scottie Scheffler sunk a 20ft putt to win the 2023 Players Championship to return to the top of the world rankings

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    Scottie Scheffler sunk a 20ft putt to win the 2023 Players Championship to return to the top of the world rankings

    Scottie Scheffler sunk a 20ft putt to win the 2023 Players Championship to return to the top of the world rankings

    Eric Cole, the only rookie to advance to the 2023 BMW Championship, has been announced as the PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, receiving the Arnold Palmer Award.

    Cole recorded two runner-up finishes on the season, including the 2023 Cognizant Classic (lost in a play-off) and the 2023 Zozo Championship.

    Cole received 51 per cent of the vote for the Arnold Palmer Award and was selected over three other nominees: Ludvig Åberg, Nico Echavarria and Vincent Norrman.

    New season of golf begins on Thursday

    The 2024 PGA Tour season begins with The Sentry from January 4-7, held on the Plantation Course at Kapalua, Hawaii – live on Sky Sports Golf with the first round starting at 6pm.

    World No 1 Scheffler leads the field which includes Team Europe Ryder Cup stars Viktor Hovland, Matt Fitzpatrick, Ludvig Aberg, Tyrrell Hatton, Tommy Fleetwood and Justin Rose.

    Watch the PGA Tour, DP World Tour and all of the majors in 2024 exclusively live on Sky Sports. Stream the PGA Tour, DP World Tour, LPGA Tour and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership – just £21 a month for six months.

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  • Rory McIlroy concedes ‘mistake’ in being ‘too judgemental’ of initial players who joined LIV Golf

    Rory McIlroy concedes ‘mistake’ in being ‘too judgemental’ of initial players who joined LIV Golf

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    “I was probably judgemental of the guys that went at the start and I think that was a bit of a mistake on my part,” concedes Rory McIlroy; McIlroy hopes “this division” in golf ends soon amid continuing extended talks between established tours and Saudi’s PIF over framework agreement

    Last Updated: 03/01/24 11:42am

    Rory McIlroy has expressed regret at being “too judgemental” on the tranche of players who initially defected to LIV Golf.

    McIlroy, who had been initially outspoken in his criticism of the players who joined the Saudi-funded series in 2022, admitted he “basically went through the last two years with this altruistic approach of looking at the world in the way I’ve wanted to see” but had now “accepted reality” and that LIV is “part of our sport now”.

    “I was probably judgemental of the guys that went at the start and I think that was a bit of a mistake on my part because I now realise not everyone’s in my position or in Tiger [Woods]’ position,” McIlroy told the Stick to Football podcast with Sky Bet.

    “You get this offer and what do you do?

    “We all turned professional to make a living playing the sports that we do and I think that’s what I realised over the past two years, I can’t judge people for making that decision.

    “So if I regret anything it was probably being too judgemental at the start.”

    Asked how his relationship was with the players who had switched from the established tours, McIlroy replied: “Most things are cool, the one thing that has bothered me is I think we have all grown up and played on European Tour, PGA Tour and that has given us a platform to turn in to who we have and give us the profile.

    Rory McIlroy say its 'certainly strange' not having Ryder Cup veterans Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter around and it'll really hit them this week.

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    Rory McIlroy say its ‘certainly strange’ not having Ryder Cup veterans Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter around and it’ll really hit them this week.

    Rory McIlroy say its ‘certainly strange’ not having Ryder Cup veterans Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood and Ian Poulter around and it’ll really hit them this week.

    “So when people have played that for, say, 15 or 20 years and then they jump to LIV and then they just start talking cr** about where they’ve come from, that’s what bothers me because you wouldn’t be in this position if you didn’t have what you had coming up.”

    McIlroy added: “I don’t begrudge anyone for going and taking that money and doing something different but don’t try and burn the place down on your way out.

    “That’s sort of my attitude towards it because some people are happy playing in the existing structure, and that’s totally fine too. But I think it’s just created this division that hopefully will stop in the near future because I think it’s the best thing for golf.”

    Relive Rory McIlroy's two wins, which saw him claim a fifth Race to Dubai title, and his starring role in Europe's Ryder Cup triumph.

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    Relive Rory McIlroy’s two wins, which saw him claim a fifth Race to Dubai title, and his starring role in Europe’s Ryder Cup triumph.

    Relive Rory McIlroy’s two wins, which saw him claim a fifth Race to Dubai title, and his starring role in Europe’s Ryder Cup triumph.

    The 34-year-old, a four-time major winner and current world No 2, said he had “never had an offer” from LIV to switch himself.

    “I just didn’t engage,” he added. “At this point I’ve pretty much set my stall out.”

    More to follow…

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  • PGA Tour players to join LIV Golf? Greg Norman on why Jon Rahm’s move will see ‘more apples fall from the tree’

    PGA Tour players to join LIV Golf? Greg Norman on why Jon Rahm’s move will see ‘more apples fall from the tree’

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    Masters champion Jon Rahm will feature in the LIV Golf League from the 2024 season, with the Spaniard since suspended by the PGA Tour; Greg Norman anticipates more players to join the Saudi-backed circuit before the new campaign in February

    Last Updated: 13/12/23 8:16pm

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    Butch Harmon believes Jon Rahm’s departure might increase the urgency of the PGA Tour to form their Framework Agreement with LIV Golf

    Butch Harmon believes Jon Rahm’s departure might increase the urgency of the PGA Tour to form their Framework Agreement with LIV Golf

    LIV Golf chief executive Greg Norman believes more PGA Tour players are interested in signing up for the 2024 season after Jon Rahm made his switch to the Saudi-backed circuit.

    Rahm ended weeks of speculation about his golfing future when he committed to LIV Golf in a reported nine-figure deal, with the Masters champion joining a roster already containing multiple major champions.

    The Spaniard has subsequently been suspended by the PGA Tour for moving to LIV Golf, with Norman expecting “more apples falling from the tree” ahead of the new campaign in February.

    Rich Beem gave his reaction to Jon Rahm's dramatic move from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf

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    Rich Beem gave his reaction to Jon Rahm’s dramatic move from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf

    Rich Beem gave his reaction to Jon Rahm’s dramatic move from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf

    “To have Jon [Rahm] on board was critically important to our next steps into the future and what we want to do,” Norman told the BBC’s World Business Report. “It will create a domino effect, there will be more apples falling from the tree – there’s no question about it, because LIV continues to grow and develop.”

    “Since Jon signed, less than a week ago now, I know my phone is blowing up. I know we probably have eight to 12 players who are very, very keen to sit down and talk to us about coming on board. Time will tell. Right now, our roster is very close to being filled but maybe within two or three [players].

    “It tells you the value of what our platform is, where these PGA Tour players see the opportunity that LIV offers. All the guys that play on LIV are just so happy about the decision that they’ve made.

    Sky Sports News' Jamie Weir explains what impact Jon Rahm's move to LIV Golf means for the sport as a whole

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    Sky Sports News’ Jamie Weir explains what impact Jon Rahm’s move to LIV Golf means for the sport as a whole

    Sky Sports News’ Jamie Weir explains what impact Jon Rahm’s move to LIV Golf means for the sport as a whole

    “LIV is a different platform to the DP World Tour or the PGA Tour and the players want to do both quite honestly, so we’ve created something special. It’s a franchise, it’s a team model and they have embraced it 100 per cent.”

    Could LIV move away from 54-hole events?

    Defending individual champion Talor Gooch says “discussions will be had” about expanding the LIV Golf format from 54 to 72 holes.

    Talor Gooch won three LIV Golf League events in 2023

    Talor Gooch won three LIV Golf League events in 2023

    Gooch’s comments follow the circuit’s signing of Rahm, who previously criticised the Saudi-backed league’s format of 54-hole, no-cut events with shotgun starts.

    “We haven’t had an open forum discussion with all the players,” Gooch told Golf Digest. “But you get both sides … guys who would welcome (playing 72 holes) and some guys who are opposed to it. Discussions will be had and it will be interesting to see what comes of it.

    “I think LIV Golf was meant to be something different; I think it’s not supposed to be a carbon copy of the rest of professional golf. I lean towards keeping it at 54 holes.

    Former professional golfer Brandel Chamblee believes Jon Rahm's decision to join LIV Golf is motivated by money and says the move is 'short-sighted'

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    Former professional golfer Brandel Chamblee believes Jon Rahm’s decision to join LIV Golf is motivated by money and says the move is ‘short-sighted’

    Former professional golfer Brandel Chamblee believes Jon Rahm’s decision to join LIV Golf is motivated by money and says the move is ‘short-sighted’

    “Part of it, too, from my experience on the PGA Tour, was Thursdays are just irrelevant from a fan perspective (except for) only a couple times a year.”

    Playing only 54 holes was one of the reasons why LIV’s application to receive Official World Golf Ranking points was denied in October, meaning those involved in the league continue to fall down the world rankings and put their qualification status for majors under threat.

    Rahm to stay away from public events

    Rahm said on Wednesday that he has decided to lay low and would avoid public events until February after agreeing to switch to LIV Golf, with the Spaniard surprised to find TV cameras at an event he was attending in the northern Spanish city of Bilbao.

    After Jon Rahm's move to LIV Golf was confirmed, we take a look back at some of his remarks about the rival tour over the past year

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    After Jon Rahm’s move to LIV Golf was confirmed, we take a look back at some of his remarks about the rival tour over the past year

    After Jon Rahm’s move to LIV Golf was confirmed, we take a look back at some of his remarks about the rival tour over the past year

    “I didn’t think there would be any cameras and that it would be a bit more intimate,” Rahm told a select audience at the Sociedad Bilbaina hall, where he was to receive the ‘Dama Bilbaina’ prize in recognition of his sporting career.

    “I am under very strict instructions not to do public events, which I have imposed on myself a little bit for myself, and for the change I have given to the world of golf in the last week,” Rahm said, giving a categorical “No!” when asked if he was planning to give an interview.

    “There will be nothing until February, I’m not allowed to.”

    Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley says there has been a 'seismic shift' in golf following Jon Rahm's decision to join LIV Golf

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    Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley says there has been a ‘seismic shift’ in golf following Jon Rahm’s decision to join LIV Golf

    Former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley says there has been a ‘seismic shift’ in golf following Jon Rahm’s decision to join LIV Golf

    PGA Tour members demand information over future plans

    A group of 21 PGA Tour players have employed law firm Susman Godfrey LLP to address a letter to the PGA Tour policy board, demanding more transparency over ongoing negotiations with Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and an outside equity group.

    The PGA Tour said in a memo on Sunday that it is advancing negotiations with the PIF, as a deadline to finalize details from the June 6 framework agreement approaches on December 31, but is also in talks with a consortium of US professional sports owners.

    Rickie Fowler insists he's not affected by Jon Rahm's shock move to LIV Golf, but concedes it's not good for the sport to be divided

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    Rickie Fowler insists he’s not affected by Jon Rahm’s shock move to LIV Golf, but concedes it’s not good for the sport to be divided

    Rickie Fowler insists he’s not affected by Jon Rahm’s shock move to LIV Golf, but concedes it’s not good for the sport to be divided

    With the future of men’s professional golf in the balance, players like Chez Reavie, James Hahn and former Masters champion Danny Willett were among those wanting to know what’s coming.

    “The board has recently received multiple bids by prospective capital partners that will potentially transform how the PGA Tour operates, who controls it, and who owns it,” attorney Jacob Buchdahl wrote.

    “All but a handful of PGA Tour players have been kept entirely in the dark about the prospective transaction, how it will impact them, and what conflicts of interest may impact the decision-makers.

    “We demand full disclosure of the details and analyses of any proposals by prospective capital partners, which should be shared promptly with all tour players.”

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